Pitch Black

The coolest sci-fi flick of 2000 hits DVD.

I missed this one in the theaters-- I even missed the hype, until I started getting email from you guys asking about when's Pitch Black coming out? when's Pitch Black coming out? when's Pitch Black coming out? You guys can be very persistent that way. Needless to say my curiosity was aroused so I took the gig to review it, and I was not disappointed-- I've got a new candidate for the Top 25.

You're coming in a little hot!

The Movie A ship full of hibernating passengers crashlands on a strange planet, leaving the survivors to quickly get acquainted, figure out where they are, and decide how to get back to wherever they were going. It's not long before they surmise that there are an awful lot of skeletons around, but no living inhabitants.

Bonin' in the boneyard.

Maybe everything died because they couldn't take the heat of the three suns in the sky. It sure enough is hot out here. But then the survivors find an abandoned spaceship, but no remains or survivors, and realize that they're not alone.

Don't go in that hole! You're too cute to die!

On top of everything else, one of the survivors is an escaped convict, whose favorite hobby is killin'. So in addition to wondering what's out there, our heroes have to decide whether they can trust him.

Would you?

Our heroes realize that the inhabitants of the planet are totally nocturnal, and wither in the light. So they figure, no problem, we'll just stay outside in the light-- easy enough, since one of the three suns is always up. But then they realize that the planet is due for an eclipse. And guess which survivor has the ability to see in the dark?

Thank goodness this model is here to demonstrate my theory.

It's a complex story that unravels slowly and keeps your interest, with the help of well-drawn characters with unusual motivations. Oh yeah, and the effects kick ass. Check it out-- the convict, played by Vin Diesel, sees like this:

While the monsters see like this:

Which makes for some interesting chase scenes. One thing I really like about this flick is that it follows the Jaws doctrine, which is, the less you see of the monster, at least at the beginning, the scarier it is. So we don't get a good look at the aliens for quite a while.

100 Proof, oh yeah!

Sure, when they do show up they bear a strong resemblance to the aliens in Aliens, and maybe the CGI shots are a little obvious, but so what?

Another thing I liked is that the three-suns premise at the beginning provides some really cool different looks for the film at different times-- sometimes it's very silver out, and sometimes very gold.) On the whole, this is a great sci-fi thriller that I enjoyed the whole way through. 8 out of 10

The Video Universal busts out with the 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer, from a pristine looking print. But what's much more impressive than that is after about the halfway point in the movie, as its title would suggest, the movie turns very dark...

...which is known to play havoc with some DVDs. Not so here. The bitrate is high throughout and jumps appropriately when needed, so that there is no blocking or compression issues. There were a couple of skips in my disc, but I don't know if that's a mastering problem or a damaged-copy problem. 9 out of 10

The Audio This disc comes with two soundtracks: Dolby 5.1 and DTS. I watched all of the DTS version and a bit of the Dolby, and as usual I found the DTS a little more powerful and a little subtler. But both are excellent, so you non-DTS people needn't worry. 9 out of 10

The Extras Since there are both Dolby and DTS tracks on this disc, there wasn't room for much else-- there's a 5-minute "HBO First Look"-esque making-of documentary on the film, which is of minimal interest, particularly if you've seen the movie. Then there are trailers and a thing called "Pitch Black Raveworld Event," which is like a home movie from these promotional raves Universal apparently threw to promote the film, though it's unclear what if anything these raves had in common with Pitch Black. Maybe you'd dig it if you're a rave kid-- I myself turned it off after 3 minutes.

Then there are two commentary tracks, both featuring director David Twohy, accompanied by actors Vin Diesel and Cole Hauser on one, and by a couple of effects guys on the other. The one with the actors is a lot of "This was the first day of shooting, wasn't it? It was hot that day." The other is a lot more interesting in my opinion, with the effects guys talking about how everything was achieved-- although there are more than a few moments of silence in that one. 6 out of 10

I wouldn't usually recommend a DVD to everyone whether they've seen the movie or not, but in this case I'll make an exception. This is the best sci-fi movie I've seen since The Matrix, and anybody who likes the genre will like this.